RECORDING
Chapter Four
There's Gotta Be a Morning After
Azusa woke up slowly. Turning onto her back, she noted with only a little interest the sunrise. Dawn broke crisp and cold over the frosty horizon, casting sharp rays upon the rapidly advancing clouds. The wind kept up its strong current, whipping the naked trees hither and thither. Even though the covers were nice and toasty, Azusa could already tell this was going to be another freezing day.
A little unwillingly, the second year sat up. After her midnight chat with Yui, she had slept heavy. The kind of sleep where you feel like you've been punched. The kind of sleep that feels so, so good.
Beside her, Yui snoozed on her tummy, hugging her pillow close to her face. Azusa tilted her head at the senpai. An odd smile spread across her face. Yui never worried about anything, yet her life ran more smoothly than the kouhai's.
I like playing with Azu-nyan, and often she'll play the game with me. The younger girl winced as Yui's blithe words crashed down on her. Game. What kind of a weird metaphor was that? And since when did Yui use metaphors?
Azusa shook her head. Too early for this. She was getting a headache and it wasn't even six o'clock. The kouhai left Yui sleeping and dressed herself in her uniform. As soon as she left the room she could hear a pan sizzling from afar. Sure enough, she found Yui's little sister, already in full uniform, making an omelette. Azusa was surprised, but not as much as Ui when she entered the kitchen.
"Ohayo, Ui-chan."
Ui jumped. In her shock she'd thrown her glass up in the air and frantically tried to catch it. She missed once...twice...In an act of sheer desperation Ui kicked out and caught the glass by balancing it on her foot. Exhaling at last, she picked up the glass and set it on the counter.
"Gomenasai, Ui," Azusa apologized.
"'Sokay," Ui smiled. "I'm just used to being on my own this early in the morning."
The guitarist thought of Yui with her face in her pillow and felt heat rise in her chest and face. "Yeah, I'll bet."
Ui held up the pan. "Omelette?"
"No, thanks. I couldn't impose..."
"Oh, it's alright. In fact, I insist."
In the end the swart-haired girl resigned and soon she was kneeling before the table, enjoying the omelette. It was delicious. Ui had put fire-roasted tomatoes and carmelized onions in it. Azusa was only halfway done with the culinary masterpiece when Ui set a mug of fresh coffee in front of her.
"Arigatou," the guitarist smiled.
"Cream and sugar?" Ui offered.
"No, thanks." Azusa blew away the steam before taking a sip...and then a deep gulp. If it was possible, the coffee was even more heavenly than the omelette. Smooth and mellow with a nut-like taste. She blinked sheepishly when Ui set a dish of sliced honeydew before her.
"Fruit, too? Wow. Thanks, Ui-chan. You'll make someone an awesome wife."
Ui smiled and blushed in response. Then she set her own breakfast on the table. Just as she'd kneeled, though, she considered the clock.
"Oh! I better wake up oneechan."
Azusa wiped her mouth and stood. "I'll do it. You enjoy your breakfast." And she darted away down the hall.
Being a creature of routine, Ui was slow to accept that someone was doing the work for her. That was not to say that she didn't appreciate it. But sometimes waking up oneechan can be an all-out tribulation, she thought, chewing her omelette. It takes patience...which I'm not sure Azusa-chan can provide...
Her worries were confirmed when she heard screaming from down the hall.
"Ahh! Azu-nyan, what are you doing?"
"I shouldn't have to do this, Yui-senpai! You're too old for this!"
Ui nearly choked on her omelette when Azusa entered the kitchen with Yui slung by her ankle over the kouhai's shoulder. Azusa's face was pinched with effort. Yui's was turning from red to purple.
"My vision's clouding over!" the senpai protested. "Please put me down!"
"Are you going to start waking yourself up in the morning?"
"Hai!"
"Swear it."
"I swear I'll wake myself up!"
"Swear it formally."
Yui moaned. Her eyes were dim and unfocused. "Um...I, Hirasawa Yui, do solemnly swear to wake myself up!"
Azusa set her down then. She watched as Yui's face faded from purple to flesh.
Ritsu was having a fairly good day. Her incomplete essay on popular culture was due today. But her Writing For College teacher got carried away on a lecture and decided to push the due date to Monday. In Spanish she got her test back, and scored better than she thought she would. After school she would have tea and jam with her friends. Simple pleasures all, but the drummer could string them together to make an awesome day.
It had a downtick or two, however. Before school hours she'd met up with Yui and Azusa. They were behaving...unusually. Yui seemed a little downcast and distant, Azusa a bit peevish. The kouhai angrily muttered something about a game before running off to her physics class. After she departed, Ritsu tried making conversation with Yui. The guitarist mumbled about a weird dream, but refused to elaborate.
Yui and Azusa weren't the only ones who weren't themselves today.
Ritsu strolled into her psychology class, smiling at the familiar cascade of black hair in the second row center seat. Snickering into her palm, the drummer crept up until she was kneeling directly behind Mio. As light as a feather yet as sharp as a triggerfish, Ritsu ran her finger up her friend's spine.
"Flesh-eating virus!"
"EEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" Mio stopped the entire class silent with her scream. She jumped up, nearly tripping over her chair.
THOCK! The bassist raised a lump on Ritsu's head.
"Don't scare m-me like that, b-baka!" Mio rasped. Her voice was hoarse. Ritsu looked up and flinched. Mio's face was pale, almost gray, and her hair was messy. Her slate eyes were bright, wild, and darted about, the bottom lids swollen and dark. She looked like one of those meth addicts Ritsu saw pictures of in health.
"You are really wound tight today..." The drummer stood up straight and touched Mio's quivering hand. "Are you alright?"
Tears glittered in the bassist's eyes. "I didn't sleep last night," she whimpered.
"At all?" Ritsu gasped.
Mio squeezed her sore eyes shut and shook her head. She sank down in her chair. Everytime she closed her eyes, though, she saw the shadow melting into the wall. But it hurt to open her eyes, to look at things. She hadn't wanted to come to school today, but her parents made her.
"I-I'm not c-coming to practice t-today."
Ritsu nodded understandingly, her hazel eyes wide and sympathetic. "Okay. Yeah. Go right home and get some rest." She waited for Mio to explain. There had to be something going on. A montage of scenarios ran through the drummer's head, each one worse than the last. A boy rejected Mio's feelings? Her parents are getting a divorce?
Maybe someone died. Ritsu's jaw dropped. Oh, no. A brief surge of emotion burst into her veins. Then the logical half of her brain took over. If someone in her family died, surely Mr. and Mrs. Tainaka would've heard it and told Ritsu. The drummer found it odd how...oblique and secretive everyone was being. Maybe it was something that personally and exclusively involved Yui, Azusa, and Mio. Maybe I should just butt out.
Yeah, right. She was Ritsu and this was Mio. Ritsu never butted out of Mio's affairs. They were such close friends that it was impossible to tell where one of them ended and the other began.
The bell to start class rang.
Ritsu briefly hugged Mio and whispered, "If you need anything...like to talk...I'm here."
Mio gave her an odd look, and nodded once.
The drummer sighed and took her seat. Their psych teacher, Tokudaiji-sensei, was already instructing his students to turn to such-and-such page.
"What is 'code-switching'?" he asked.
He waited as the silence stretched out. Ritsu turned in her seat, scanning the classroom. Her eyes fell upon Mugi's empty desk. She blinked. She'd seen the keyboardist before Spanish class, so she knew she was here. The drummer's brow puckered. Where was she?
As if in response to Ritsu's question, the door burst open and Mugi staggered in, out of breath. The drummer gasped. Mio bit her lip. The rest of the class murmured anxiously. What they'd thought to be impossible had just happened. Tsumugi was late.
"You're tardy, Kotobuki-san," Tokudaiji-sensei said flatly.
"Gomenasai," Mugi choked, bowing. "I was held up in-"
"You know I don't accept excuses. A tardy is a tardy."
"S-sumimasen," the blonde sighed, bowing lower.
Ritsu's eyes widened as Tokudaiji retrieved the dreaded pink paper from his desk. She gnawed her fist in apprehension. Holy crap! Mugi's getting a detention! She turned her nervous gaze over to Mio. The bassist's head sank lower toward her desk, her pencil slipping from her left hand. What the hell is up with everybody today?
"Who is your homeroom teacher?" Tokudaiji inquired, filling out the detention.
"Sawa-uhh, I mean, Yamanaka-sensei." Mugi felt weird referring to Sawako so formally.
The psych teacher nodded, then handed Mugi the damned slip. "Report directly to her after school. If you try to dip out, you will be suspended."
"H-hai." The blonde girl's hands falteringly accepted her fated detention. She lurched on over to her desk, her face bright red, trying to ignore her classmates' prying eyes.
Tokudaiji cleared his throat. "Anyways...Code-switching. Don't tell me you don't know what it is because you ladies do it all the time. It's..." He halted and his face spoiled with disgust. "...Seriously?" he growled.
Ritsu followed his glare...right to Akiyama Mio. The raven-haired girl was off in la-la land, slumped over her desk, her right arm hanging over the end, her face buried in her left arm. Her torso rose and fell slowly in tandem with her breathing.
A few girls giggled. A weird, stinging sensation prickled the drummer's eyes. Her hands felt cold and tingly, but her head throbbed hotly. What was going on? Ritsu never felt this way before. It was an irrational feeling. She kind of wanted to hurt the other girls for laughing at her Mio. But that's a normal way to feel for your best friend, right?
One simpering individual leaned in to shake Mio awake. But Tokudaiji-sensei shook his head. He had better ideas. He had a brown paper bag from a lecture he'd given last month. He inflated the bag with his breath and held it an inch from Mio's head. Ritsu drew in a sharp breath. She knew this trick. She herself had done it when the two of them were in junior high. Now to have someone else doing it...
Ritsu abruptly stood. Heart pounding fast. Red anger misting her vision. Reached for brown bag.
"Anoo, Tokudai-"
BAM!
With a choking cry, Mio jerked up. Her back hit the chair hard, forcing it backwards. Squeaking and sobbing, the bassist flailed wildly, but her equilibrium was lost. She crashed to the floor at Ritsu's feet.
"Mio!" the drummer cried, squatting to help her lamenting friend. Mio was shaking like a run-out horse, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes.
"Oh God, I can't," she sniffled, clinging to Ritsu. The shadow on the wall rippled in her vision. She couldn't see anything else. "I just want it to go away and leave me alone..."
Ritsu gently shushed Mio, stroking her feathery soft black hair. Of course she'd seen her childhood friend scared, but never like this. To say that the drummer was livid was the understatement of the year. Happy though she was to be the one to console Mio in her day of distress, all it took was one glance at Tokudaiji standing over them...and Ritsu exploded.
"Kintama! Baka yaro!"
It took the weeping Mio a moment to realize that Ritsu's heated words were not directed at her. She gaped at her friend in horror.
"R-Ritsu! That's a t-teacher! You can't!"
But the drummer careened on in her tirade, oblivious to Mio's tearful protests.
"Yariman! Issunboshi! Benjo mushi!"
"Ritsu!" Mio hissed, more insistent. She raised her hand to deal the swearing girl another goose egg, but Ritsu stayed her fist. The drummer's eyes swam impassionately as she roared, "Aho ketsu!"
A collective gasp rose from the class. Tokudaiji's face twitched furiously as he snarled, "You see me after class."
"Hai, sensei," Ritsu responded scathingly.
The psych teacher's face was beet red. His nostrils flared. He turned to Mio and grunted, "Do you need to see the nurse?"
The bassist hesitated. Then she shook her head, never meeting Tokudaiji's eyes. "No. I'll m-make it through the day..."
"That wasn't an offer, Akiyama-san. Go to the nurse."
"H-hai." Mio clumsily got up, gathered her stuff, and scurried out of the classroom.
Ritsu slowly sat back down, never taking her vehement stare off the teacher. She resisted the urge to smile when she saw him falter under her glare. Then he straightened his posture and traipsed back to his safe little podium.
"Er, where were we...? Mm. Ah, yes. Code-switching...Tainaka-san and I did a lovely if not school inappropriate demonstration of it..."
"You are in so much trouble, Tainaka," a girl behind Ritsu hissed.
The drummer sighed, knowing it was true. But it was a relief, in a way. Ritsu always got in trouble with teachers. This was the first normal thing that had happened all day.
Or was it?
Ritsu waited until everyone had left the classroom before she boldly approached Tokudaiji-sensei. After a day like today, she was ready to accept any punishment he had. Maybe she would be joining Mugi in detention today. Whatever.
The psych teacher stared at his computer monitor. "Tainaka-san, you were way out of line today. To talk to a teacher that way...You shouldn't even speak to a friend that way. By regulations I should have you remanded to the deans' office."
Ritsu exhaled and said quietly, "You were a bit out of line yourself, sensei. Yes, it was rude of Mio to sleep in class. But it wasn't necessary to pop a bag so close to her head. She could've seriously hurt herself falling out of that chair. And by regulations, you would have been fired."
Tokudaiji glared. "You don't talk regulations with me, young lady. Remember that you are just a student." He turned back to his computer and muttered, "What's ridiculous is you're not supposed to get in trouble here. If you'd stayed seated, then Akiyama-san would've been punished and that would've been it."
The drummer shook her head. "After what she's been through, I couldn't let that happen to Mio."
Tokudaiji's brow smoothed. How Tainaka-san had held Akiyama-san...The way she stood up for her...Her using Akiyama-san's name without honorifics...He was kind of getting it. "You and Akiyama-san are...awfully close," he noted with a disapproving frown.
Ritsu smiled and nodded. "We go way back...which is why I was mad when you frightened her." That sounded unconvincing to her, but it seemed to satisfy Tokudaiji-sensei.
"Either way, I would've let you off this time."
It took a moment for the message to register. Then Ritsu's eyebrows shot up high on her forehead. "Huh? Why? I called you a stupid ass and a d*** and a-"
"Yes, I know." The teacher's face plainly said don't make me reconsider. "But you're better than most of my students. You're a wee bit lax with the homework, but at least you're a more active participant."
Unbelievable! Mugi was tardy and got a detention! I cussed him out and got off scot-free! Ritsu shook her head, but accepted that. Ordinarily she would have willingly and blithely gone with that. But seeing Mio in such a disturbed state shook the drummer to her core. Mio always had the ability to do that to Ritsu, and vice versa. But best friends do that. Best friends are core shakers. Right?
"Hai. Arigatougosaimasu." Ristu bowed.
Tokudaiji waved his pen at her, indicating the state of her attire. "And for Christ's sake, wear your uniform properly."
"Hai." The drummer tucked in her shirt and buttoned up her jacket. Woah, this so does not feel right. "Goodbye, Tokudaiji-sensei."
"Have a good weekend, Tainaka-san."
Ritsu darted out of the classroom. She immediately unbuttoned her jacket, pulled her shirt-tails out, and hurried on to health class.
On the way she encountered Yui.
"Ah! Yui! Glad I ran into you!"
"Really?" the guitarist asked faintly, smiling.
"Ah-yup," the drummer nodded. "Band practice is cancelled today."
Yui dropped her goofy grin and her eyes widened. "Ehhh? Why?"
"Mugi's got a detention and Mio's sick."
"Mugi's got a detention?"
"I know. Crazy, right? If you see Azu-nyan, tell her for me, 'kay?"
"M'kay. See you later, Ricchan."
"Ja nai."
Azusa sat in her geometry class, staring at a blank proof without seeing it. This proof demanded to know why triangle A and triangle B were congruent. Three givens. Two rows. Not very difficult at all. However, Azusa was working out a completely different proof in her head, one that wanted to know what kind of game Yui thought they were playing.
ARE we playing a game?
Though she'd always hated math, geometry made Azusa a more meticulous, logical thinker. She was quickly able to figure out the rules of the game.
-Yui-senpai says or does something appalling in a manner of her laziness.
-I react to it.
-Yui-senpai tries to justify her lousy work ethic with something irrelevant.
-I get mad and yell.
-Yui-senpai hugs me.
-I calm down.
Did that mean Yui won everytime? Azusa frowned. That made a fairly one-sided game. But I guess it's not so bad when she hugs me, so it's like winning for me, too...
Wait. Why do I even care? All day long she'd thought about Yui and their game. She snorted. Games were so childish. People played them in middle school, not high school. Girls strung boys along, boys dated girls to raise their social status...
Were they playing that kind of game? A love game?
Azusa wasn't sure. But she was just about ready to forfeit.